My mom and dad live in a nifty retirement home – kinda looks like a mansion, and kinda feels like Hogwarts for Retired Wizards. One thing my folks were anxious about when they moved from Longview to their new Vancouver wizard house was when they could expect their phone book to arrive. How else where they to familiarize themselves with the area? Doctors, restaurants, shoe shops - the phone book knows. Oh, they are quite computer savvy, especially for octogenarians, but old habits die hard, and habits are like comfort food when everything else seems unfamiliar. Hey, I still have a paper-style newspaper delivered every morning. I am probably the last generation to do so.
When was the last time you were thrilled to find a phone book on your porch? It hasn’t been that long, really. Maybe fifteen years tops? But in those fifteen years, because of the ubiquity of your hands on the keyboard and the convenience of Google, your habits have completely changed. Now phone books often go from the front porch to the recycle bin without touching down on any other surface.
My mom likes Apple products. She has an iPhone, she’s adept at Facebook, and she orders library books to read on her iPad. My dad is a Windows guy. He has a laptop that he recently updated to Windows 10, long before my husband has (or will). However, they are probably at their technical peak. I doubt if they will follow the next trend. They don’t venture into Twitter or Reddit. You will not find them wearing virtual reality headsets or Dick Tracy watches.
Despite my newspaper habit, I don’t see my own technical horizon yet. I’m willing to adapt. But I know there will be a day when I am going to call a halt and hunker down in my own technical bunker, and the kids will call me a Luddite. Too old to get with the program. But where will that bunker be? Will I be willing to get the new iTattoo, which I’m assuming will work like an iPhone, but with the vibrating feature replaced with tickling? Probably. But I will probably balk at the iEye. Sure, I can see getting a yearly tattoo update, but I think I will keep my own eyes, rather than replacing one of my goo-filled eyes with a CyberDyne Cyber Eye™.
What does your technical horizon look like? Can you imagine looking through your own Cyber Eye™? Or is it clouded by an advancing Mad Max style apocalyptic dust storm? I guess we could consult a crystal ball (an ageless wizard-style technology). I wonder whether WiFi disrupts a crystal ball signal. Wait – have we made crystal balls unusable with our thirst for instant techknowledge? (I’m disappointed to learn via Google that I didn’t just invent the word techknowledge). Find me a crystal ball. We have some research to embark upon.
This essay has taken a turn. I can either walk away or follow my thoughts through the next narrow hallway, which from here looks littered with Tarot cards. What’s that card there? The Oracle has it in his hairy white hands.
She Who Watches the Oracle.